With the evolution in the digital technology and the communication technology, the supply and demand of audio/video based multimedia content is expanding at a fast rate in diverse areas, such as broadcasting and movies as well as Internet and personal media, and so on. Furthermore, as 3DTV/3D movies (or films) providing volumetric (or three-dimensional) viewing through broadcast or movies have become more common, consumer demand for realistic media providing a sense of reality and a sense of presence has been increasing. Moreover, along with the evolution in the display technology, as TV screens in general households have become more large-sized, expense in enjoying advanced and realistic HD content (or more advanced content) is also growing. Accordingly, as a means for preparing for the Post-HDTV market, interest is growing on realistic broadcasting, such as 3DTV as well as UHDTV (Ultra High Definition TV), as the next generation broadcasting service, and, most particularly, discussions are being extensively made on UHD (Ultra High Definition) broadcasting services.
Since the UHD broadcasting content provides content more advanced than SD or HD broadcasting content, the data size that is to be transmitted is relatively larger. In transmitting such UHD broadcasting content, since the current terrestrial wave uses the 8-VSB modulation scheme, data of a maximum of 19.39 Mbps may be transmitted, and, since Cable uses the J.83b scheme, a maximum of 38.8 Mbps may be transmitted. More specifically, according to a simple calculation, in case of transmitting a basic (or essential) UHD service through a terrestrial broadcasting network (or broadcast network) or a cable network, a data size of 20 Mbps is expected. Therefore, in order to provide advanced UHD services and not essential UHD services, problems may occur in that additional channels are required to be allocated or that the transmission method is required to be changed.
Furthermore, in a multimedia service environment, heterogeneous networks (3G/LTE, Wi-Fi, wired LAN, terrestrial broadcasting network, cable network) having diverse bandwidths, protocol, QoS (Quality of Service) co-exist, and differences in the performance and accessibility of user equipments (TV, desktop (computer), notebook, tablet PC, smart phone) are growing. In order to access/consume multimedia content in such environment, a video coding method (or scheme) for dealing with such diverse networks and user environments is required.